


Falling Into Fire

by FlyingPigPoet



Series: There Oughta Be a Superhero Handbook [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Bi Kara Danvers, F/F, Kara thought she was straight, Red Kryptonite, Smut, Surprise! - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:50:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 14,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingPigPoet/pseuds/FlyingPigPoet
Summary: Season One, Falling, Red Kryptonite. From the points of view of Kara and her friends and Lena. Sometimes the fire burns everyone.





	1. Strange Changes

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because several months ago I read "Of RedK and One-Night Stands" by ForeverInsomniac, Chapter One. I couldn't remember or find the fic, until I put it out there on my Tumblr, and someone finally identified it. But I wrote this really long multi-chapter fic to give my take on the headcanon that that one chapter had squeezed into my head. So hats off to ForeverInsomniac.
> 
> I hope I have done your idea justice.

Fire is the first element, from which all the others are derived. Fire is primal, like rage, like desire. I have walked through fire, held it in my hands, shaped it to my will. I have seen the fiery heart of a planet as it exploded, molten core turned into a trillion tiny stars. I am the fiery heart of that planet. Every night, my dreams are licked with fire.

//

Winn knew Kara better than almost anyone, and certainly better than anyone at CatCo. Winn knew Kara's height, weight, clothing sizes, playlists, takeout orders and favorite Buffy episodes. Up until that morning at CatCo, Winn would have sworn he also knew all of Kara's wardrobe. But maybe not.

When the doors of Cat's private elevator dinged, Winn thought he was hearing things, because Cat had already arrived. So he turned and saw the doors open and Kara strutted out wearing a form-fitting black knit dress that hugged her curves in all the right places. And her shoes weren't the oxfords or flats he was used to seeing. They were green, like kryptonite, and they were absolutely fuck-me heels. As she made her way through the office, everyone, male and female, turned and stared. James nearly walked into a wall.

Siobhan gave her a look.

Kara said, "What? I was getting tired of my old clothes."

Siobhan said, "We all were."

Cat took note. "Keira, dressed like an adult. That's promising."

Kara handed her the mail.

Cat turned to Siobhan. "So I demanded a list of replacements for Lucy Lane like yesterday."

Siobhan pulled a piece of paper off her desk, but Kara was faster.

"Ms. Grant, I already checked all their references and ranked them according to who you'll find least annoying."

Cat looked at Kara's list. "Oh. Any Republicans?"

"Two reformed."

"A reward. Someone gifted me tickets to Club Apocalypse for Friday night to see a Scandinavian DJ whose name I won't even try to pronounce." She handed the envelope to Kara.

"Thank you. I will put them to good use."

As Cat walked away, Siobhan muttered, "Do you even know how to dance?"

"Don't be jealous," said Kara. "Or do. I don't really care."

And that was also a strange look on Kara: not caring what someone thought of her. Winn had always assumed that her need to be liked had stemmed from the need to fit in, to not be discovered as an alien. Or maybe it was because she cared so much about other people, that she loved so easily (but not him, never him), and that she couldn't understand how other people didn't. Sometimes he thought it stemmed from the same desperate need for Eliza Danvers' approval that Alex had. But whereas Alex needed Eliza's approval because she never got it, Kara needed to prove to herself that she was actually worthy of all the approval that Eliza heaped on her when she should have noticed all of Alex's amazing achievements that Eliza seemed to always ignore.

Obviously, Winn thought, he had given all of this way too much thought.


	2. The Alien Is the Weapon

Fire can burn underground for weeks, a bolt of lightning hitting a root system, following it all the way down. Earth dirt has just enough oxygen flowing through it to feed the fire while humans and other animals walk around on the prairie thinking that everything is hunky-dory, that they are safe. Then one day, the fire finds its way up another root system, all the way up to the tree that catches fire above ground and spreads it far and wide.

//

Alex knew Kara better than anyone on this planet or any other. She knew what made Kara happy or sad, proud or disappointed. She knew that although Kara had come out as Supergirl initially because she, Alex, had been in danger, Kara had stayed out because she loved it. She loved the danger, the flying faster than the threat, the surge of adrenaline. She loved the faces filled with relief, gratitude, and affection. She loved feeling like she was finally helping people. She took the job very seriously.

Or at least, she always had before. That night, she was... different. DEO agents stood in the command center while J'onn briefed them on the evening's mission.

"Two armored vehicles have been attacked in the last six hours," he said, "both carrying hundreds of thousands worth of gold. These two goons managed to take out highly trained and heavily armed security personnel."

"Alien weapons?" asked Alex.

"Almost," said J'onn. "An alien is their weapon. A K'Hund." The picture on the viewscreen in front of them showed a semi-humanoid who looked big and bad. "Stronger than your average Fort Rozz escapee. Now we've obtained intel on their next heist, but we've got to move fast. Lucky for us, we have our own alien."

All the agents turned to look at Supergirl, where she was sitting with her feet up on the conference table looking at her nails. She glanced up. "Hm?"

"I'm sorry, Supergirl.I hope I'm not boring you."

"Do boring people get bored? I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about another alien agent at the DEO." She twirled around in her rolling chair.

Alex stared. To the best of her knowledge, Kara had never so much as sassed an annoying teacher, or talked back to Eliza or Jeremiah. Alex had acted out after Jeremiah's death by going through her punk rock phase, giving the middle finger (mostly metaphorically, but sometimes literally) to authority. Kara had gone overboard in the other direction. Rules and authority made her feel safe in an unsafe world. Alex stared at Supergirl, then she turned and watched J'onn's face, normally so bland, work to recover from his surprise.

He said, "Right, people, let's move!" He turned back to Supergirl. "Do I need to brief you again or have you got all that?"

Supergirl dragged herself to her feet, enunciating, "Kick. Alien. Ass." She strode out.

And Alex figured that it wouldn't be a problem, this strange attitude change, because Kara did take her duties as Supergirl seriously, because she did consider them duties. So she took Alpha Team to the West National City Bank prepared to only have to do cleanup once Supergirl did in fact kick the alien's ass. When their DEO black SUVs arrived, Alex jumped out and pulled her gun on the K'Hund, yelling, "Don't move."

But the alien didn't listen. The alien never listened. It jumped up to the roof of a nearby building and ran off. She hit her earpiece. "Supergirl, you're up."

Alex listened for sounds of fighting and led her team to the alley where Supergirl stood, alone. "Where did he go? Are you hurt?"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Supergirl. "He got away."

Then, instead of flying back to the DEO, she went and sat in the passenger seat of Alex's SUV, forcing another agent to squeeze into the back with the rest of the team. She played with her hair as Alex drove back to base, fiddled with the radio, moving through jazz, classical, and disco, and finally settling first on hip hop, then on country. Alex didn't say a word. She did not know what word she could say.

Surely, it was just a bad day?


	3. Too Hot to Breathe

There's a reason they say that you shouldn't smoke in bed. It sounds innocent, maybe a cigarette after sex, or something to get you through the last season of whatever you are binge-watching on Netflix, but we all know that it can go very badly wrong. Close to 29% of house fires start that way, and once a fire starts, it is not just the fire that kills; there is also the smoke to be reckoned with. In your sleep, you don't realize that you can't breathe. If you also haven't changed the batteries in your fire alarm in a while, it might not help you. If a neighbor or a noisy pet raises the alarm, maybe you'll get out on time. But if you live alone, the only thing that will make it better is that you will have died in your sleep.

//

J'onn J'onzz thought he understood Supergirl. Like him, she was pretty much the last of her kind, or at least, she had spent twelve years assuming that she and her cousin were the only ones left. That kind of knowledge could eat away at you. It didn't help that she had seen her planet literally destroyed, blown up in an apocalyptic blast that tore her galaxy apart. He had seen Mars riven by the White/Green war, but at least his planet still existed. His people didn't, but the planet did.

He also knew what it was like to have two lives, the one that everyone saw and the one that no one could know about. He knew what it was like to have two names, two faces, and two stories. And he knew how that could occasionally make you... a little crazy, now and then. So when Supergirl started acting oddly, he made a note that she should take some time off.

Supergirl and Alex returned from the mission with nothing to show for their labors.

Vasquez came in and said, "Director, Senator Crane is in your office. She said you were going to update her on what happened with the K'Hund."

Supergirl muttered, "Oh, that sounds fun."

J'onn looked at Supergirl, then shared a look with Alex. "Thanks, Vasquez. Tell her I'll be there in a minute." He turned to Supergirl. "May speak with you for a second?"

He took them to the armory. Alex looked worried. He closed the door behind the three of them.

"Supergirl, I know you've just started working here since our... disagreement after your aunt's death. But our job here at the DEO is to catch aliens, not let them escape."

Supergirl turned on him. "How about you just get off my back, for once, Hank!"

Alex murmured, "Supergirl..."

J'onn said, "I thought we were in a good place here."

Supergirl stared at him. "We're in a good place. When I do what I'm told. When I don't, you come down on me. I'm tired of it! You want to catch the K'Hund? You try it yourself. You're just as strong as me, if you wanted to be!"

Alex tried to intervene. "You know how dangerous that is for him--"

"It's not dangerous for me? Every Kryptonian on this planet wants to kill me except my cousin. I have to live with that. And he could too!" She got up in J'onn's face, her voice quieter. "What are you so afraid of? You talk about honoring your people, but you refuse to be one of them." She waited for his reply, looked at Alex's confused face. "I gotta go. I've got work in the morning. Another job that underappreciates me!" She strode out.

There was a sound like stone breaking. Both J'onn and Alex jumped.

"What do you make of this?" asked J'onn. "Burnout?"

"But she just took off two weeks."

"Then what?"

"PTSD? I mean, that thing with Bizarro hit her pretty hard."

"Yes, but it hit her in the usual way, what did Vasquez call it, the Sunny Danvers way. She felt bad for the woman Lord used. This is resentment, disdain. I can feel it coming off her in waves."

Alex had no answers. J'onn sent her home for the night. Maybe in the morning they could figure out what was wrong, or maybe a good night's sleep would sort out Supergirl's problem. If it didn't, he could imagine Kara becoming the next alien menace they had to catch.


	4. Wait and See

Some fires need to be fought, with water, with suppressant chemicals, with limiting the fire's food or oxygen. Some need to simply burn themselves out. It takes a skilled and experienced firefighter to know which was which.

//

Cat Grant thought she knew Kara Danvers: an amiable, kind, and very efficient young woman, naive and trusting, but basically a team player. Loyalty was something that Cat absolutely required from her employees. Kara was loyal, hell, she was the world's purest Hufflepuff. Anyone could see that. Also, she did what she was told.

Normally.

"Keira!" Cat yelled that morning. She strode to Kara's desk outside her office and stared at her employee (once again, surprisingly dressed like an adult). "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Kara handed Cat the Noonan's cup. "Your latte, Ms. Grant. Walking from the main elevator takes an extra ninety seconds, which means your latte is ninety seconds cooler."

"Brazen," said Cat, feeling slightly stunned. "That's a new color on you. I don't mind it... YET." She didn't turn, but it was clear that she was now speaking to Siobhan. "What do you want?"

Tweedle-Dee said, "I've got a scoop for you. Can we talk? In... private?"

"Allez."

She went into her office and sat down at her desk. Siobhan handed her a tablet.

"What am I looking at?"

"It's Supergirl, letting the bad guy go."

The black and white surveillance footage seemed to show just that. Cat handed the tablet back. "Put this under your hat until we figure out what's going on."

"What's going on is that Supergirl isn't the hero that she claims to be."

"There must be an explanation. Maybe it's another Bizarro."

"Who cares? Supergirl turning bad and we're the first to report it? It could change the conversation. We could dominate the headlines!"

"Don't use media jargon that you don't understand. That'll be all."

Sioban marched out, stung, Cat knew. But it was for the best. Supergirl, like Kara Danvers, actually, was Cat's creation. And Cat would control the narrative around Supergirl for as long as she could. And when she figured out what kind of bug Kara had up her butt, she would deal with that too.

But first things first.


	5. Fighting Fire with Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When Kara thought about herself lately, she felt... different. More objective. More... in control. For twelve years, Kara had suppressed herself: her intellect, her beauty, her rarity. Lately, she felt no interest in further self-suppression. She felt no interest in minimizing herself, in playing by the rules that other people had written for their own gain. Maybe it was something from Supergirl's work leaching into Kara's life, but she was increasingly feeling more like winning than like standing on the sidelines hoping for things to get better."

The thing about a forest fire, the truly interesting thing, is that it can't feed on itself. As long as there is something to burn, a forest fire will rage on indefinitely. This was why humans long ago learned to build "back fires," a strip of land around a fire that was burned until there was nothing there for the fire in the middle to eat and it was too wide for the fire to jump, and then it burned itself out. But that relied entirely on the ability to control the back fire. Otherwise, the whole world might burn.

//

When Kara thought about herself lately, she felt... different. More objective. More... in control. For twelve years, Kara had suppressed herself: her intellect, her beauty, her rarity. Lately, she felt no interest in further self-suppression. She felt no interest in minimizing herself, in playing by the rules that other people had written for their own gain. Maybe it was something from Supergirl's work leaching into Kara's life, but she was increasingly feeling more like winning than like standing on the sidelines hoping for things to get better.

So she used her superhearing for her own gain. She used her Kryptonian Science Guild intellect for her own benefit. She used her own "sitting in the catbird seat" reputation for innocence to get what she deserved. Finally.

Revenge? Was that the word? Kara had broken up with Cat's son Adam and Cat had retaliated by hiring Siobhan to take over her job, but without actually firing her. And Siobhan was a little shit with pretentious dreams and no ethical boundaries that Kara could see. So maybe revenge was a strong word, but Kara couldn't care less.

It was freeing really, being able to let herself circumvent the rules. It was... pleasurable.

So when Kara overheard Siobhan's conversation in Cat's office, from across the expanse of CatCo's forty-fifth floor, planning to send Perry White the surveillance footage of Supergirl letting that K'Hund fucker get away, Kara felt absolutely no compunction about setting the woman up and letting her fall.

And it was easy.

She strode toward her, smiling, as sharks did. "Hi, Siobhan!"

"What do you want? Stalker."

"Messenger downstairs wants you to sign for Ms. Grant's flowers."

"Why don't you do it?"

"Well, I would but Ms. Grant needs me to proof a column for her ASAP. I'm sure one day she'll give you more editorial responsibilities too." Kara did not normally smirk at people, but today she smirked at Siobhan. It felt... oddly satisfying.

Grudgingly, Siobhan got up and hurried to the elevator.

With another smile, this one more internal, Kara sat down at Siobhan's desk and read the email to Perry White. She printed it out and deleted it. Then she strode into Cat's office, where Cat was on the phone with her annoying mother. Kara simply put the email on Cat's blotter and went back to her office.

And waited for it.

Siobhan had barely reached her desk with the flowers before Cat yelled, "Siobhan! FRONT AND CENTER!"

Siobhan hurried into the office, closing the door behind her, but doors were no obstacle to Supergirl, even if she was not currently wearing her crest.

Cat said quietly (and it was always worse when she got quiet, "I know you see yourself as a plucky heroine... And I know that you think that once the Daily Planet runs the story... and I know that you believe that in the end I will admire your gumption...."

"Won't you?"

"No. I admire loyalty, integrity and employees that I can trust. Clean out your desk. I'm sorry. Was I using my inside voice? You. Are. FIRED!"

Kara looked around. Clearly, her colleagues hadn't needed Kryptonian superhearing to know what Cat was saying.

"Now before you go skipping off to Metropolis, I will save you the bus fare. I had a much-too-long conversation with Perry White, and there is no job awaiting you there. Now, be gone."

Siobhan rose and walked out of Cat's office looking rather like a zombie.

Winn, whom Kara had caught having office sex with Siobhan in a supply closet that one time, approached her. "Are, are you okay?"

But she didn't reply.

Kara said, "So, there's your exit."

Siobhan didn't even reply, just walked away like she hadn't heard.

"Well," said Supergirl. "That was awkward. Not surprising though. She was a bad seed. It was only a matter of time. I know what will lighten the mood." She picked up the tickets to Club Apocalypse. "Drinks. And dancing. Who's in?"


	6. How Nature Loves a Good Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The hot blonde followed him but he pulled away again. Within seconds the shorter man had joined him and the two of them left together. Lee watched with incredulity. Who would leave a hot woman like that behind? It bordered on the ridiculous. Now, if she ever came on to Lee the way she--
> 
> Er. Uh. Oh.
> 
> The blonde pushed her way up to the bar, smiled sweetly at the man occupying the stool next to Lee, pushed him off and away.
> 
> Lee thought, What the hell?
> 
> Lee caught the woman's attention and looked her, very slowly, up and down. A straight woman would have jumped and run. This woman... did not."

It took a long time for humans to realize that forests actually need a fire now and then. The experts call them "fire-dependent ecosystems," places where the seed pods of certain flora only open when they reach the raging temperature of a forest fire. In the end, a fire isn't the end of a forest's life, merely a new stage.

//

Lee was tired after all of the day's meetings, but too keyed up to sleep. The concierge at her hotel had recommended Club Apocalypse and given her a ticket to the special dance party that night, and so she had taken a cab here, even though she figured she would end up getting hit on by drunk guys. Still, one or two Cosmos would loosen her up, make it easier to go back to her hotel and fall asleep.

That's what she thought.

She sat at the bar with an open tab. She had drunk three Cosmos over the course of an hour and was feeling loose, maybe ready to go back to the hotel. The DJ was all right, but overrated. Good thing her ticket had been free. Nearby a tall, handsome black man was arguing with a cute little white guy about their friend, who then showed up and started totally hitting on the black man.

Too bad the blonde girl was straight. She was totally hot. Lee found herself watching the woman wrap her arms around the man's neck. She pulled him close and spoke into his ear. Oddly enough, he pulled away.

Seriously? Who would pull away from a woman like... that?

The woman laughed, and when he turned away from her, pulled him back by the arm. He clutched his shoulder, looking pained. She pulled him into her arms again. She took off her glasses and he put them back on her looking, of all things, scared?

He pulled out his phone and tried to answer it. Obviously the bar's noise interfered with his reception, as he pushed his way through the crowd, frowning. The hot blonde followed him but he pulled away again. Within seconds the shorter man had joined him and the two of them left together.

Lee watched with incredulity. Who would leave a hot woman like that behind? It bordered on the ridiculous. Now, if she ever came on to Lee the way she--

Er. Uh. Oh.

The blonde pushed her way up to the bar, smiled sweetly at the man occupying the stool next to Lee, pushed him off and away. 

Lee thought, What the hell? 

Lee caught the woman's attention and looked her, very slowly, up and down. A straight woman would have jumped and run. This woman... did not.

Instead, she gave Lee the very same, slow, considered once-over. Lee knew she was in good physical shape, knew her jaw line had by itself broken hearts, that her eyes had inspired poetry (some excellent, some nauseating). But the fire that spoke in this woman's blue eyes was... different? astronomical? excruciatingly beautiful?

Lee didn't have words for it.

The woman pulled her stool closer. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Your drink's almost empty. Want a refill?"

"Uh, sure, thanks."

The bartender gave her another. She sipped it carefully, realizing that she was on the edge between sober and drunk.

"I don't think I've seen you in here before," said the blonde.

"I'm here on business."

"Really. Lucky National City."

Despite herself, Lee blushed.

"What kind of business? If I can ask."

Lee thought this woman could ask her anything. She managed to say, "My company is moving here. I'm taking a look at possible places to live." It was a reasonable thing for an L-Corp employee to say.

The woman nodded. "What do you do when you're not drinking Cosmos in a National City bar?"

"I'm an engineer?"

"Mmm. Really. What kind?"

And Lee stumbled there. Usually the E-word stalled conversations with new women, without ever getting anybody past Go. She said, "Mostly mechanical.'

"Mmm," said the blonde. "Finish your drink. Then we can dance."

Lee found herself gulping down her fourth Cosmo, as they say, Against Medical Advice. Then she was out on the dancefloor gyrating to terribly loud modern music, but the blonde was... intoxicating, so much more than the Cosmos had been.

The dancing was intense, as the woman slid her hands up and down Lee's body, occasionally pulling in close so that they were breathing each other's breath. The woman's scent was heavenly, a mix of citrus and floral and something Lee didn't have a name for. Heat moved back and forth between their bodies in sync with the music, and the blue lights made the other woman's eyes an unearthly blue. Lee thought back to the last time she had done something like this, what, two years ago? maybe three? Opal City, she thought, during the robotics conference. Another unknown bar in an unknown town and an unknown woman. No names, just the movement of warm bodies.

Biting her lip, Lena feathered her fingers up and down the woman's bare arms, caught a flicker of surprise in the blue eyes behind the glasses. Then the music slowed and the woman pulled her in so that one of her legs pressed in between Lena's, a subtle grind that caught Lena by surprise and made the warmth move down...

The woman pressed her mouth to Lee's ear with a feeling like a lick or a kiss but she murmured, "Want to get out of here?"

And oh, yes, she really did.

The woman took her by the hand and led her through the crows and out the front door. The sudden difference between the hot press of bodies and the cool night air made Lee gasp.

"Don't worry," said the woman. "I'll make you warm again soon."

"My, my hotel's just a few blocks away," Lee offered.

"Let's walk. Build up an appetite." She kept Lee's hand in hers, her thumb roaming over the back as though it was her whole body and Lee could barely walk in a straight line. The woman's self-satisfied smirk promised an interesting night, and Lee had not had that kind of night in a long damn time. Too much time fixing her family's mistakes, working overtime all the time. She needed a night just for her.

They reached the hotel, and Lee pulled the woman in the direction of the elevators. When they arrived on the top floor, the woman looked impressed. Lee said, "I got an upgrade with my airline miles. I've been traveling for work nonstop lately."

The woman nodded as if this were a reasonable compromise, to take the benefit of nonstop work with a little personal pampering. The suite was spacious, the decor a wash of pleasant sea-greens. The woman's black dress stood out in the middle of it.

"Drink?" said Lee.

"Absolutely. I am very, very thirsty."

Lee smiled, called for room service to bring a good bottle of red wine. 

The woman's phone pinged, and she looked annoyed. "That's enough of that," she said, hitting settings. Then she hit another app and the phone started playing 1940s love songs. "It helps to have a playlist for... special occasions," she murmured, setting the phone down and taking Lee in her arms again, but differently this time, more like the way people used to dance, not the public grinding but with eye contact, pupils dilating, showing desire clearly.

When the wine came, Lee put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle and closed the door behind her.

"Alone at last," said the woman, the smirk returning.

Lee raised her eyebrow at her. "Those are fantastic shoes," she said, "but your feet have to be killing you." She kicked her own shoes off and opened the wine, poured two glasses.

The woman smiled. "Not tonight. Tonight I am made of fire, and fire doesn't feel pain." But she slipped her shoes off anyway.

And as the alcohol warmed Lee back up, she began to wonder if the woman really was made of fire. When they both set their glasses down and moved toward each other, Lee murmured, "Unbutton my blouse."

But woman smiled and said, "Not yet. First you make me come, and then I'll take your clothes off."

Lee frowned. "You don't want to look at me naked? 'Cause I look good naked. And that could make you come right here."

"Mmm. Confidence. I like that. But I have wanted those long fingered hands in me three knuckles deep since I saw them wrapped around your glass at the bar."

And when she put it like that...

The woman pulled her into a slow dance again, whispering, "Unzip me."

And Lee used her right hand to pull the zipper down, following it with her left hand that drifted her fingers down the same path of the woman's naked skin, because the back of the dress had cutouts that had showed the woman's back. The black dress dropped their feet. Lee admired the work of art that stood before her, wearing only black lace underpants.

"Bed."

Lena kept drifting her hands up and down the woman's back as they slowly moved toward the bed. The woman sat on the edge then stretched her arms above her head and lay back like that and Lee had to use all her self-control not to roll her own hips in response. "My God, your abs are exquisite."

Another smirk. "My... abs."

"Well, all of your... Here, allow me." And Lee was close to unraveling but she had always had chill and game and all the things, so she started strew kisses along the woman's collarbone, throat and shoulders, came down each arm, artfully pressing her leg between the woman's leg as she went down and then up, down and then up. Lee worshiped those abs with her mouth, flickered her tongue and fingers over those breasts, reached down and stroked first one leg, down and back up again, then the other. Finally the woman growled and flipped them so that she was on top and Lee was lying on her back, which allowed Lee to reach around with both hands and slide them under the underpants, cupping and stroking the woman's amazing ass, but avoiding what she knew they both wanted until the woman moaned, "Touch me."

"But I am touching you," said Lee with a smile.

"You know what I mean."

And Lee repeated all of the ways she had been touching the woman, still avoiding sliding the cotton from her body until she was sure that it would be soaked through. She was nothing if not thorough.

It was an art, really, Lee thought, putting off the thing you most wanted until you couldn't put it off anymore. Until the woman was moaning and writhing under your hands, begging you, demanding that you finish the job.

Lee finished the job to the sound of gasps, to the fingernails digging into her back, to a shuddering wreck of a beautiful woman very different from the woman who had walked into that bar so self-possessed, looking to get this release from a man, but getting it now from her. Lee smiled. It didn't occur to her that the woman might have just as good skills in bed as she had, that in an hour or so the shuddering mess would be her.


	7. Putting Out Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Vasquez understood PTSD fairly well from her time in the Marines, and she had always thought Kara Zor-El Danvers would be a prime candidate for it, after watching her entire planet destroyed. The fact that the girl was eternally Sunny Danvers, even when she wore the cape and crest and talked in a lower voice, that really didn't change Vasquez's opinion. She knew a lot of vets who really didn't face their negative emotions particularly effectively.
> 
> So what if, just hypothetically, either someone tried to discredit Supergirl or Supergirl actually went rogue one day? How would the DEO be able to preemptively find out what was going on before the media did and shut it down?"

I slept, and dreamed of fire, tongues of fire licking the buildings of my city, gouges of fire jumping from roof to roof, sheets of flame taking out whole city blocks, the buildings, the trees, the people. And I flew to the center of the city, standing tall, so tall above the tallest skyscraper, and my billowing red cape was made of flame.

//

Since the incident with Bizarro, Agent Vasquez had spent a lot of time sitting in the command center, thinking.

Not that she didn't always spend a lot of time sitting in the command center, thinking. That was pretty much her job description, that and taking down rogue aliens with the team. But Bizarro had made her think about the job differently. Normally, Hank would tell her about a particular alien and ask her to work up a threat assessment for the species or the individual. That was usually fairly straightforward.

This problem was different. It wasn't precisely a rogue alien that would be the problem. Well, sort of. It was, she assumed, someone pretending to be a rogue alien: a rogue Supergirl. But then again, what if something happened with Supergirl? Vasquez understood PTSD fairly well from her time in the Marines, and she had always thought Kara Zor-El Danvers would be a prime candidate for it, after watching her entire planet destroyed. The fact that the girl was eternally Sunny Danvers, even when she wore the cape and crest and talked in a lower voice, that really didn't change Vasquez's opinion. She knew a lot of vets who really didn't face their negative emotions particularly effectively.

So what if, just hypothetically, either someone tried to discredit Supergirl or Supergirl actually went rogue one day? How would the DEO be able to preemptively find out what was going on before the media did and shut it down?

And then Vasquez started to wander around the DEO, talking to the labrats, the IT guys, the techies who made the gear they all used to get the messy jobs done. She did a lot of reading on facial recognition software. She asked one of the techs if they could build an S-crest recognition algorithm. He had hemmed and hawed and talked about the waste of computation time since there were so many t-shirts and ball caps out there, leaving Vasquez frustrated. This felt like an important thing she was pondering, like a problem waiting to happen. She had worked for years at the DEO, and before that in the Marines, trying to think about what could happen and stop it just before it did.

And of course, Vasquez's thoughts were frequently interrupted. First she had to run Alex's op to pick up the damn K'Hund that Supergirl hadn't been able to catch, and then she had to keep Alex from wringing the damn thing's twenty-inch neck when it claimed that Supergirl hadn't even tried to capture him, but had instead told him that she thought him unworthy of her time. And she had recommended that Alex get the numbers from Supergirl's last medical workup, to see if she could find any oddities.

J'onn grumbled about how Supergirl wasn't answering her phone, but Vasquez pointed out that the woman functionally worked two very demanding jobs, one by day and one by night, and maybe she simply wanted a Saturday morning to herself?

And while Alex was [distracted] by looking into Supergirl's medical file, a pair of fire aliens started burning through National City's Chinatown. Vasquez prepped a team and their SUV's screeched to a stop in front of "the absolute best place for potstickers East of Hong Kong" with guns out and blazing, but the other blaze was the fire next door, a tailor shop, but the wind was high, so Susan Vasquez did what she was pretty sure Alex would do: she shouted, "Supergirl, Golden Joy is on fire, and alien fire is hard to put out!"

Then she threw the weighted fireproof net over one of the aliens and wrangled him into the back of one SUV.

A rush of red and blue passed the darkened window, and the sound like a hurricane and the feeling of cold, told Vasquez that the fire was probably contained. She left the alien she had taken to two other agents and she went to where Supergirl was standing, looking pissed. Vasquez had a split second to call how to handle this, and she decided to go in the decidedly un-Hank-like direction.

"Thanks, Supergirl! We just didn't have the equipment we needed for this one. And fire spreads fast in this part of town, especially when it's windy!"

Supergirl looked down at her like she barely recognized her. "Did you get them all?"

"Just one. The report said there were two--"

And Supergirl was up in the air before she could finish her sentence. She and her agents did a grid of the nearby streets and then Vasquez called it and they returned with their prisoner to the DEO. Supergirl strode in, dragging the other alien by his leg. There was purple ichor all over his body, as if she had beaten the crap out of him. He was still breathing, luckily, but still. That amount of violence was unlike her. 

Vasquez said, "I'll take the prisoner, Supergirl. You might want to go before Hank finds you here. Thanks for interrupting your weekend to help us! "

Supergirl frowned. "Yeah, well, Golden Joy. You know. But please don't call me until Monday. Last week was... Fuck it. I need a day off. I'll see you later, Vasquez."

"Yes, ma'am."

And with superspeed, she was gone. One of the agents looked down at the moaning alien at their feet and then back up at Vasquez. "Um, ma'am? Didn't Director Henshaw tell us to let him know if Ms. Danvers came in?"

"Yes, he did, Agent. He did not, however, leave any instructions about Supergirl. Semantics, Sinclair. Look it up."


	8. Kindling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The woman sat up stiffly. Kara's eyebrows twitched at the view, but the woman simply threw off the covers and walked naked across the suite and into the bathroom. Kara heard the rush of water from the shower, gave it a split second thought, then stripped and joined her.
> 
> It was different, standing up and being sprayed by hot water, but she figured the principles were the same--touch, taste, tease.
> 
> Or, as they say, lather, rinse, repeat."

The way to keep a fire going is to have a big log in the center, propped up by smaller logs below, so that there is a channel for air to flow around the main log. But the way to get the fire going quickly is to have kindling, lots of it, balled up newspaper, twigs, sticks, the tiny things that catch flame and flare and flare and flare.

//

Kara got back to the hotel before the brunette woke at noon, and was sitting in the armchair, wearing tight black jeans and a crimson Henley, flicking through her phone. She smiled. "Hey, there sleepy-head. I've already gone for a jog, had breakfast and picked up clothes from my place. I don't think you've moved a muscle in six hours."

The woman sat up stiffly. Kara's eyebrows twitched at the view, but the woman simply threw off the covers and walked naked across the suite and into the bathroom. Kara heard the rush of water from the shower, gave it a split second thought, then stripped and joined her. 

It was different, standing up and being sprayed by hot water, but she figured the principles were the same--touch, taste, tease. 

Or, as they say, lather, rinse, repeat.

And she soaped the clawmarks that she had made in the woman's back the night before. Such things could get infected after all. On the one hand, she was a bit appalled at the damage she had done; they were almost like whip marks. Usually, she suppressed her strength better than that.

But if this week had taught her anything, it was that suppressing parts of herself was not something she really wanted to do anymore.

And she kind of liked that there was someone on this planet who bore the marks of her ownership, even if it and they were temporary.

When they had brought each other to the edge and over a few times, they tumbled out of the shower together and toweled each other off, very gently, in Kara's case, looking at the marks she'd made. "Yeah. I'm... sorry about that. I guess I didn't know my own strength..."

The woman glanced over her shoulder in the mirror. She shrugged. "Sometimes it's better to feel something than nothing. Even if it's pain."

Kara didn't know much about physical pain on this planet, but she just muttered, "Well, sorry."

"I'm surprised you came back. I didn't expect to find you here when I woke up."

Kara's eyebrows rose. "Oh, well. I just. I guess I was hoping that you would be free tonight as well..."

The woman smiled. "I could be. I have five different places to look at this afternoon with the realtor, but I should be free for dinner, or maybe drinks afterwards?"

"Drinks. Same place, same time?"

"I'd like that."

Kara tried to remember how not to be herself. She tossed off a careless, "See you then" and left.

Then she went home and started to panic about what on Earth she could possibly wear.


	9. Only You Can Prevent...

It only takes a spark. A cigarette, not entirely ground out. A scrap of still burning paper, the tiniest scrap, from a camp fire. The sun's heat magnified by glass onto grass as dry as the desert in summertime.

//

Alex stood behind Vasquez in the command center, looking at the screen above them. "Tell me what I'm looking at, Vas."

"It's one of the pictures from the NCFD from the fire on Wednesday, the one Supergirl responded to. She lifted a steel beam off a trapped firefighter. The whole thing took five minutes on her end. But some of the firefighters are showing odd symptoms, almost as if there were a toxin in the fire: nausea, vomiting, headaches. They sent us samples to test, but we're not finding any of the kinds of neurotoxins that might cause those symptoms. And I can't think of what else to test for. You're the labrat. What do you think?"

"Go in with HazMat suits and take more samples?"

"I'll get Hank to authorize it. Um. Do you... want to ask Supergirl to come with you? I know she said, I mean I'm sure she could use a day off..."

Alex narrowed her eyes. "So. That second fellow that your crew brought in. You had help?"

"You did see the address of the fire."

"I did, but I don't see what-- Oh. Golden Joy. Fair enough. Hank doesn't ask, I won't tell. Is she okay?"

"She seemed distracted, cranky."

"But she didn't nearly snap your head off? Respect!"

"I was... diplomatic."

"I'll bet."

Vasquez pinched the bridge of her nose. "I think it would be wise to take her with you, but you'll have to... ask nicely."

Alex stared. "You mean the way Hank always asks us nicely if we want to go on a mission? And afterwards he says thank you and gives us each a cookie?"

"Um. Yeah, like that. More Giles, less Henshaw. Can you do that? Or do you want me to contact her?"

Alex stared off into space. Finally, she said, "Both. You call and then I'll play nice. Don't tell Hank she'll be joining us. I mean, hell, maybe she won't."

//

Alex hated the HazMat suits. The first time she had ever worn one had been traumatic, alien corpses that had not managed the heat of reentry into Earth's atmosphere. A great deal of vomiting first inside the suit and later again after she had torn it off.

So she stood with her team of oversized minions wearing a huge yellow suit and awkwardly collecting samples. The flash of red and blue was both a relief and a shock. Supergirl marched across the rubble-strewn roof directly to Alex, even with all of the agents looking the same, and Alex realized that she had probably honed in on Alex's heartbeat.

"Vasquez said you needed me?" Supergirl snarled.

Alex channeled Susan Vasquez. "Supergirl, thank you. Some of the firefighters you helped up here on Wednesday have developed some disturbing symptoms, and we are trying to figure out if there was a toxin in the fire that they might have breathed or touched. Did you see anything odd when you were here?"

"No. Nothing. I picked the beam off the firefighter and left."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing. One of the other firefighters thanked me and I stepped away, and--" She paused. "No, nothing."

"Okay, it's just, none of our biochem tests are coming up with anything that would explain this. No asbestos--"

Supergirl rubbed her eyes, shook her head.

"Supergirl, are you okay?"

"I am fine! Stop bothering me! I can't help you. I didn't see anything. I was only here for like two minutes. Grr."

"Okay, well, thanks. We'll do more blood tests on the firefighters, but if you think of anything--"

But Supergirl was up, up, and away. Alex watched her go, wondering what she was missing. Then Agent Chan shouted, "Agent Danvers! Ma'am! Over here."


	10. When Sparks Fly

Wind. Wind can carry fire far. It usually doesn't need to. A hundred feet? A hundred yards? When the wind rises and carries a single spark to a new sere place, the fires starts from scratch, consuming, destroying, everything in its way.

//

National City's Royale Hotel (& Conference Center) was known for Henri, the concierge, who could make anything happen for one of the Hotel's guests when he needed to. He knew EVERYONE in National City, politicians, actors, athletes, extremely discrete masseuses (and masseurs). Even Roulette, which was saying something.

So when several guests on the second to highest floor of the hotel started to complain about noises apparently coming from the top floor, and when he and some security personnel had gone up there to find out what, or who, was doing--

Suffice it to say that the people on the second to the top floor were given rooms just slightly lower down, and the rooms were comped.

Because Henri followed the business news, was a big investor in what was still, for now, known as LuthorCorp, and he had high hopes for what kind of profits a multi-million dollar corporation of that size coming to National City might bring.

Also, its current CEO always tipped the bellboys very well. And Henri always respected the big people who appreciated the little people.


	11. What is Paper? What is Wood?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Kara was still embarrassed that she had forced the nameless woman to, well, do her, first, so she could figure out how it was done. Instincts were one thing. Getting herself off on the rare occasion was one thing. But another person? A fragile human? A woman? That was totally different.
> 
> Luckily, Kara had always been a quick study."

How does a fire start in the first place? What is the nature of "spark" that begets "fire" that consumes "paper" or "wood"?

//

 

When Kara arrived home on Sunday afternoon, Jessy the pizza boy was waiting for her. At first, her instinct was to snarl at him, but the smell of the cheese...

So she tipped him heavily, thanked him for waiting, mumbled about traffic and took the four double-cheese veggie pizzas and the two Meat Lovers into her apartment and chowed down.

She had, to quote herself, built up an appetite. So she munched down slice after slice, remembering the nameless woman and the things she had done with her hands, her tongue...

After only three pizzas, Kara no longer felt hungry, which was odd, but she put the rest in her otherwise fairly empty fridge, washed her hands and changed into a t-shirt (T-Rex Sue) and sweatpants (NCU). Then she went to the back corner of her apartment, where her old paintings stood half-stacked, leaning against the brick wall.

She had not taken all of her childhood works with her, just the best ones: the memories of Krypton, the skyscrapers (best English equivalent) of Argo City, with the pods zipping by, and the red sun setting on the horizon.

The paintings she had done since moving to National City for college tended to be watercolors, pale Earth landscapes, places she had seen and liked, if only for their difference from the places she had lived in and loved and grieved.

At the back of the stack, she found one she barely remembered painting, but it was good, so accurate that it brought back the size and smell and tempered colors. It was the meeting room of the Science Guild.

The words "meeting room" in English didn't do it justice. They suggested a spare white room with a grey table in the center, perhaps a dozen chairs and a white board (without markers).

This was more like the council room out of the Lord of the Rings, with an arched ceiling and arched doorways leading to arched corridors. On Earth the walls would be made of marble. She did not know the name of the stone used on Krypton for such things. The table was an oval, a sign of almost equality. Not the perfect circle of Arthur's fabled knights, but something close. And her father standing at one end, speaking of his thoughts, his discoveries.

It had been weeks before they had realized that Kara had crept to the lower entrance, and sat listening to all of the discussions. They had been surprised when, after being discovered, she had argued for her inclusion, argued that the science of this one was wrong, the logic of that one flawed, that her own father had missed a step in his mathematical equations.

They were ready to induct her as the youngest member barely a month before the end. But then Krypton had become increasingly unstable, and rational discussions ended abruptly. And then the pod.

And then the firestorm, and the ultimate blackness.

And then, when she woke for a moment every year or two, the Phantom Zone.

And then Kal-El's seemingly enormous hand reaching down to help her out of the pod.

And then Midvale, and watercolors.

Midvale Junior High wasn't so bad. She barely spoke English, which was a problem the first few weeks, but then Alex had taught her the alphabet and given her a dictionary, and she had sorted that out. But language was easy. Culture was hard.

She had done all of the Earth style science classes as a child and couldn't let on. So she had coasted during her science classes and worked hard on Earth history and literature, geography, art. And suppressed herself, more and more, during gym.

And then what Eliza called adolescence had hit, two years earlier than it would have on Krypton, and Eliza and Alex had helped her through, but...

Kara was still embarrassed that she had forced the nameless woman to, well, do her, first, so she could figure out how it was done. Instincts were one thing. Getting herself off on the rare occasion was one thing. But another person? A fragile human? A woman? That was totally different.

Luckily, Kara had always been a quick study.


	12. Gathering Embers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "James's weekend had totally sucked. He blamed Supergirl, or, to be more precise, Kara.
> 
> It had started Friday night, after they had all left for the bar, and after Kara had... whatever that had been... come on to him? That hardly seemed possible. It was totally unprofessional. And even though he wanted it to be true, his instincts, those gut-level instincts that Clark had always pushed him to pay attention to, said that it was somehow wrong.
> 
> Not she's-like-my-sister wrong. Not she's-too-much-like-Him wrong. Just.. wrong. Like, not enough consent wrong. Like if a drunk girl came and did what she--"

Fire was essential for human survival, not just in the tundra, but anywhere outside of the desert/rain forest zone. People froze to death fairly easily, or at least got so cold that their immune systems couldn't fight as well. I never understood the exact mechanism, but what I always understood is that humans are basically very fragile. Too fragile.

//

James's weekend had totally sucked. He blamed Supergirl, or, to be more precise, Kara.

It had started Friday night, after they had all left for the bar, and after Kara had... whatever that had been... come on to him? That hardly seemed possible. It was totally unprofessional. And even though he wanted it to be true, his instincts, those gut-level instincts that Clark had always pushed him to pay attention to, said that it was somehow wrong.

Not she's-like-my-sister wrong. Not she's-too-much-like-Him wrong. Just.. wrong. Like, not enough consent wrong. Like if a drunk girl came and did what she--

So he had backed off, backed away, took Winn, his wingman, and fled the bar. Just at the exact moment that Cat had called him, demanding a sit-down with Supergirl.

And if he had gone with Kara, he wouldn't have been able to do that for one reason. But having fled her presence, he didn't have a chance in hell of making it happen now.

But he left messages for Kara.

KingJamesBible: Cat wants to talk to SG.

Nothing. No response. And Cat left him a voicemail, but the bar was not conducive to such things, which in some way he was grateful for. He texted back.

KingJamesBible: At Apocalypse. Couldn't hear your message.

CatsMeow: Need to see SG.

KingJamesBible: Haven't seen her in days.

CatsMeow: This is serious. Today. Or tomorrow. No later.

KingJamesBible: I'll do what I can.

CatsMeow: There are other photojournalists in NC.

James texted nothing back. She wasn't wrong. And he really didn't want to go back to Metropolis. Maybe Star City's paper had openings?

Sunday passed, with more of the same texting back and forth between Cat and James, Between James and radio silence on Kara's end.

On Sunday night, James began to be seriously worried. He texted Alex.

KingJamesBible: Have you heard from Kara? Cat's been looking for her since Friday...

AgentLabRat: Heard she was ok as of yester.

KingJamesBible: If she doesn't come in tomorr, pretty sure her job is shit.

AgentLabRat: 10-4. Thanks, J. Do what you can do.


	13. Firefall

The thing about most planets--Krypton, Starhaven, Earth--was that gravity happened. If it didn't, most civilizations wouldn't work at all. But still, the fact that when sparks, or rock, or people rose into the air, for whatever reason, they also ended up falling again, that was, as humans would say (unhelpfully), a thing.

//

By Monday night, Cat Grant was pissed. As the CEO of a multi-million dollar media empire, she was not used to waiting around for anything. So for her to wait for 48 hours for a response to a phone-call/text?

CatsMeow: Hit your silly watch or whatever you do. This is serious.

//

KingJamesBible: K, you REALLY need to deal with C NOW. Or your job. She's not messing around this time.

AgentPotSticker: She needs to get that stick out of her

KingJamesBible: Play nice and mayb3e you can keep your job.

//

Supergirl landed on Cat's balcony Sunday night. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to know if Ashton Kutcher and his camera crew are hiding underneath your cape. Supergirl would never release an evil alien caught in the act of an armed robbery, so I assume I am being punked."

"I wouldn't assume anything from now on, Cat."

"Did you just call me Cat?"

"You have me in the media as a girl scout. Supergirl is brave, kind and strong. Isn't that a stock characterization? Very two-dimensional. Everyone knows real people have a dark side."

"Yes, but you don't get to be a real person. You're a superhero. You get to represent all the goodness in the world."

"Yeah, but I'm sick of it. And you know what else I'm sick of? Enabling all of you in your victimhood. Oh well, my building is burning. Well, lah-di-dah, won't Supergirl just swoop in and save the day! Well, get used to the flames, people, because I quit."

"Supergirl, I fear that you are having some sort of a mental breakdown. Don't worry. It happens to the best of us. And I'm happy to take you to Dr. Schuman for emergency Lexipro, that's if your alien brain will respond to the SSRIs. But in the meantime, I would lay low. This haughty attitude is highly unsuitable."

"But I learned it from the best," said Supergirl. "Cat Grant. You are the most arrogant, self-serving person I know."

"Now, you listen to me. I made you. And you are not going to let me down."

"Or? What? Or, wait, you're the most powerful person in National City. At least, that's what they say on TV. You want to see what powerful really looks like? Watch!"

And Supergirl pitched Cat Grant over her balcony. The woman screamed the entire time of her freeform dive... down. Forty-plus stories.

And yes, to prove her point, Supergirl did catch her about thirty stories down, and landed her in the street whole and unsplatted,

And Supergirl said, "Pure power, Cat, is deciding who will live and who will die... And? Don't ever call me again."


	14. Playing with Fire, Getting Burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When Maxwell Lord's building caught fire, he swore a blue streak. When the firefighters fighting the fire were trapped on the roof and saved by Supergirl, Max got nervous, but by the time he sent a team up to retrieve the trap he had set up for Non, it was gone, presumably taken by the DEO. Then there were rumors that Supergirl had failed to catch an alien, maybe had even let it go. And Max thought about Alexandra Danvers, the beautiful DEO agent with the alluring brown eyes. And he thought about that glass containment cell, its hard cot, its lack of privacy.
> 
> And he thought about Alex Danvers' brown eyes.
> 
> And he went to the DEO to turn himself in."

There are humans who light fires for fun, for sexual pleasure, for the feeling of power it gives them, the control of light and heat, the color of the flames, white, yellow, orange, red. The destruction.

//

When Maxwell Lord's building caught fire, he swore a blue streak. When the firefighters fighting the fire were trapped on the roof and saved by Supergirl, Max got nervous, but by the time he sent a team up to retrieve the trap he had set up for Non, it was gone, presumably taken by the DEO. Then there were rumors that Supergirl had failed to catch an alien, maybe had even let it go. And Max thought about Alexandra Danvers, the beautiful DEO agent with the alluring brown eyes. And he thought about that glass containment cell, its hard cot, its lack of privacy.

And he thought about Alex Danvers' brown eyes.

And he went to the DEO to turn himself in.

//

The DEO agents recognized him immediately and called Vasquez, who signed him in and escorted him down to the lab, where Hank Henshaw and Alex Danvers were examining a large sample of something reddish black behind glass. A line of blue light ran back and forth over the sample in its box. On the computer screen, the readout showed a low-grade radiation signature he was very familiar with.

"Kryptonite?" said Hank.

"Not exactly," said Alex. "Maybe synthetic? So it's close to the real thing, but whoever made it didn't get it quite right."

"Meaning what?" asked Hank.

"It wouldn't damage her on a cellular level, but it could explain the erratic behavior. But who would make Kryptonite?"

"Yeah," said Vasquez, pushing Max forward. "About that..."

Alex Danvers' brown eyes flared. Max wondered if that was how Supergirl felt when his kryptonite had altered her brain. She pulled out handcuffs, and although Max had occasionally fantasized about Alex Danvers and a pair of handcuffs, it had never going quite this way.

"Hey," he said. "I came here to help. Hear me out. Then, yeah, if you want to lock me up again, fine. This time I actually deserve it."

Hank said, "Agent," and Alex backed off, but her eyes were hard on Max. He spoke directly to her. "I didn't even know kryptonite was a thing."

"Until we showed you when we took down Bizarro."

"I spent all that time making her, when all this time, right in front of me was this substance whose sole molecular purpose was to kill Kryptonians. It's sort of ironic."

"You're out of your mind," muttered Alex.

"I'm only practical! Non and his army will return. Soon. So I took matters into my own hands."

"You've recreated kryptonite," said Alex.

"Tried to. Just didn't get it right."

Hank took the handcuffs from Alex. "This sample was connected to a satellite receiver dish on that roof. Yours? You set a trap for Non."

"Yes, but the fire, that was an accident. I never meant to endanger any firefighters, any civilians, not even Supergirl."  
Vasquez frowned. "So you figured if you booby-trapped the satellite, then your kryptonite would kill Non just in case he went to go check on it?"

"It didn't go exactly as planned..."

"It never does with you," snapped Alex.

There was a noise out in the corridor and then Winn and James ran in. "Oh, we have a big, big problem, Alex. Supergirl just threw Cat Grant off her balcony!"

Alex whipped around. "She killed Cat? Oh my God! Kara!"

"No," said James. "She's okay. She caught her before she hit the ground."

"Cat has nine lives," muttered Max.

Alex's voice when hard and cold. "And how would you feel if Cat were lying in a puddle in the street and Supergirl was her murderer, simply because you planned to catch Kryptonians--"

"I didn't know Supergirl would show up. Or that she'd be affected by the synthetic K in such a surprising--"

"You're right," said Alex. "You just thought it would kill her."

"I'm sorry, Alex. I came here to make it right. I created red kryptonite. Maybe I can create an antidote."

"You better hope so, for National City's sake. Because you just turned Supergirl into the monster you always feared she'd be!"

Max stripped off his $2000 Italian blazer and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "All right. Let's get to work."


	15. Fire Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That doesn't change anything." Cat's voice was different, tireder, more real. "People are in danger and the public needs to be warned."

There are people on this planet whose only job is to watch for fire weather--warm temperature, high wind, low humidity, dry lightning--the things that create favorable conditions for the start and spread of wildfires. When all the signs point to danger, they raise the red flag.

//

Cat Grant summoned Winn back to CatCo, and he knew why and his stomach sank like a stone. When he and James reached her office, Cat's makeup artist was putting the finishing touches on Cat's face and hair. Her skin was pale beneath the light artificial blush, as though her faceoff with imminent death had left its print on her.

"Ms. Grant, what's going on?"

She sighed and shooed the woman away. "Supergirl has completely gone off the rails. I have to publically denounce her as a villain."

"Ms. Grant," said Winn. "Supergirl is not a villain."

"That doesn't change anything." Cat's voice was different, tireder, more real. "People are in danger and the public needs to be warned."

James knelt so he could look Cat in the eye where she sat on her couch clutching a tissue. "Ms. Grant, look, I know Supergirl is going to be fine soon. But if you denounce her, it's not going to matter. She'll have lost the city's trust."

"She threw me off of a balcony. I fell forty stories. I was a few feet away from splattering on the pavement when she flew down and caught me on a whim, now I appreciate that you are trying to cure her, but at this moment can you tell me that the public is safe? Can you guarantee that any of us are safe? No."

Winn set up the camera in front of Cat's desk. She sat down, composed herself and he hit Record.

"People of National City, this is Cat Grant, live from CatCo plaza. As you all know I have been Supergirl's most outspoken champion. So you can imagine how difficult it is for me to tell you that I and CatCo can no longer stand behind Supergirl. I made you trust her. I gave you my word that she was safe, a friend. I was wrong. Supergirl has changed. She is unstable and extremely dangerous. She threw me off of a building last night and threatened my life. Who knows what else she is capable of. It's not easy being let down by our idols. Having someone who embodies our ideals helps us believe that we can be heroes too. Sometimes heroes fall. So please, for your own safety, stay away from Supergirl."

Silence fell among the employees gathered to hear Cat's speech. 

"Okay, that's enough. Turn it off. Run it on a loop. Everyone needs to know."

She cleared her throat and brushed what Winn thought was a tear out of the corner of her eye, but he didn't say anything.

Forty stories.

There really was nothing to say.


	16. Truth is a Fire that Burns Fast and Hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They would have been surprised to know that Kara really took the uniforms because the fabric they were made of was one of the most tactile memories she had of her family. Sometimes when she felt homesick, or missed Astra's calming voice, she pulled out the soldier's one-piece black suit and just ran it through her hands."

A fire in a factory can take days to put out, all the chemicals and fuels lending their slick signatures burning, melting everything within reach, regardless of the cold temperature or the pouring rain.

//

After Astra's death, Kara had nothing to remember her by, except her spy beacon. But when the Kryptonian soldiers had been killed at Lord Technologies, and the DEO, having no way to launch them into space as was Kryptonian custom, secretly buried them, Kara had made shrouds for them, and taken their uniforms home. The DEO agents believed her when she said this was custom. They would believe anything she said, really. They would have been surprised to know that she really took the uniforms because the fabric they were made of was one of the most tactile memories she had of her family. Sometimes when she felt homesick, or missed Astra's calming voice, she pulled out the soldier's one-piece black suit and just ran it through her hands.

It wasn't until all of the changes recently that she thought to try it on, to replace the soldier's family crest with her own. It felt... oddly right. She wondered what might have happened if she had had more time with Astra, if Alex had killed Non instead. Perhaps Astra and Kara could have worked together to save the planet, her real family behind her at last, her equal, who knew her from of old and respected her mind, her heart.

She wore it as she flew over National City thinking about what might have been.

If Krypton had not exploded, she would have been the youngest person ever to be inducted into the Science Guild. She would have discovered things humans were centuries away from discovering. She would have raised a child of her own for the House of El.

If Krypton had not exploded, she would not be able to fly like this, to bend steel with her bare hands, to burn her enemies or freeze them. She would not have the smitten looks of the humans, their overwhelming gratitude. She remembered the little girl wearing the Supergirl suit to school and she smiled.

Below her sirens sounded and she startled, but then decided to let the humans deal with their own problems for a change. She tried to decide if she would go back to CatCo to work or not. She pictured working side by side with Cat, all the while knowing that she had the ultimate power over her and Cat would never know that it was Kara who had nearly introduced her Death that night, with his scythe and angry grin.

She heard a heartbeat she recognized. It was approaching her apartment. She flew back. she stepped through the windows to see Alex in badass mode, gun out like she expected Kara's darkened apartment to be full of robbers.

"Kara?"

"Hello, Sister! Look, I picked out my own outfit without any fashion advice from you. All those years, you pushed those dowdy sweaters and skirts on me. Trying to cloak my beauty so I don't outshine yours." Her eyes lit up and she sent laser beams into her clothing rack, setting her wardrobe on fire.

"Kara!" Alex holstered her gun and ran for the fire extinguisher in the kitchen, came back and put out the flames.

Kara laughed. "I needed a wardrobe overhaul."

"Kara! This isn't you!"

"I'm more me than I've ever been!"

"Kara, please. You were exposed to red kryptonite. It, it's affected your brain. You're not seeing clearly."

Kara turned on her. "Oh, I see clearly. I see how you've always been jealous of me! You didn't want me to come out as Supergirl because you didn't want me to own my powers. I can fly! I can catch bullets with my bare hands! And that makes you feel... worthless."

"No," said Alex quietly. "No, I'm proud of you."

"And then when couldn't stop me from coming out as Supergirl, you got me to come work for you. To retain some control. Those days are so over. I am finally FREE of you!"

She strode back to the windows and threw them open. "I am ready to soar!"

Alex came up behind her. "You already soar, Supergirl. I am not keeping you from using your powers. All I'm trying to do is--"

"Protect me? I am bulletproof. Fireproof. What on Earth could you possibly protect me from? You're human. Breakable. I could snap you in half with my hands."

"Fine. You don't need me. What do you want?"

"Look at that city. They worship me. And those who don't, will."

"Kara, just... listen to yourself."

"Oh, cut the big sister crap, Alex. We have never been sisters. We do not share blood. And you know what the sad truth is? Without me? You have no life." She stepped closer so that they were face to face. "And that KILLS you! Deep down... you hate me. And that's why you killed my aunt." She could see Alex's eyes beginning to tear. "Awww. Did I make you cry? You know what they say. The truth hurts."

She took off, into the air, to get away from the smell of burnt argyle and the sound of her s--, of Alex's heart breaking.


	17. The Right Tool

Firefighters say that it's gallons per minute that puts a fire out, but that requires having a hose of the right length, a nozzle of the right width, and the right number of firefighters to carry, aim, and hold on tight.

//

Alex returned to the DEO lab hurt, scared, and above all, angry. "Is it ready yet?" she snapped.

Quietly, Max said, "Almost. I tried to modify this particle beam rifle to carry the charge." He paused, seeing her face. "You know, I am sorry."

"I don't want your apology. All you ever do is rationalize and justify and you think we're all supposed to feel better because my sister wasn't the target. What happens if she kills someone? How will SHE feel?"

Max put down his tool. "In science, when you're trying to do good, there are always collateral effects."

"How could you know? What if the person who is collateral damage in your grand scheme is the person who might have made this world the better place that you want to see? My sister could. If you would stop fighting her. You keep playing God. And you keep making things worse. And its such a shame. Because if you could stop trying to do things all by yourself, if you could actually get your hubris out of the way, then there's a chance that you could become the great man that you want to be."

Max just stared at her.

She turned and walked out. Hank approached her. "Alex, how's Kara?"

"She's gone, Hank. I don't know who she is anymore. I don't know what she's capable of."

Senator Crane approached them. "You need to take Supergirl down. I know this is personal for both of you, but you need to use everything the DEO has and protect this city from Supergirl."

"I'm not going to kill her," said Hank.

"Supergirl saved my life. It's the last think I want. But the DEO's job is to protect this world from alien threats. What do you call Supergirl right now?"

Hank and Alex shared a look. Hank hit his earpiece. "Vasquez, assemble the troops. We're moving out. Supergirl's the target."

Max came out of the lab with the particle rifle. "If anything can reverse the red kryptonite effects on your sister, this should do it."

"It better."

"Good luck." He handed it to her. "I mean that."


	18. The Right Time

In most fires, the sooner you can get to it, the sooner you can control and stop it. Sometimes, the fire starts unnoticed, doing untold damage before anyone can step in.

//

Supergirl didn't have a plan. She flew over the city, feeling angry and hard and ready to explode, but she knew that if she wanted to achieve anything, she had to get her feelings under control. As if by instinct, she landed in front of Noonan's and went in and sat at the bar. There was a small bowl of peanuts sitting there in front of her, looking innocent like a litter of puppies. The flatscreen TV above the bar showed Cat Grant warning National City about Supergirl.

Supergirl slowly poured the peanuts out on the bar in front of her and tossed the metal bowl away. The she flicked a peanut at the shelf of alcohol bottles, shattering first one, then another, then another. People jumped up from their seats and hurried out of the restaurant. 

"Sometimes heroes fall."

Supergirl strode out, but she couldn't get away from Cat Grant's voice. High above the street a TV screen was playing the warning too. She leaped into the air and flew right through it, sending a shower of glass and sparks to the street below. Police leaped out of their cars and shot at her--why did they always do that when it never worked?--so she shot the cars with her laser vision and they exploded.

Black SUVs screeched into the intersection, spewing black-clad DEO agents with automatic weapons. At first she let them shoot at her, hanging in the air, laughing and impervious, but the heartbeat she knew so well drew her eyes down to Alex aiming an unknown kind of rifle, and Supergirl, before you could so much as say "kryptonite," flew down with superspeed to fly down their line, knocking the agents down and sending their weapons skittering away from them.

"Classic Alex," said Supergirl. "Always on time to ruin the fight."

Alex clutched her right arm to her chest, gasping, "I want to help you."

"Doesn't look like help to me."

Hank Henshaw yelled, "Supergirl!" and tried to tackle her, but she tossed him to the ground.

"Please," gasped Alex. "You have to stop!"

"Nothing on Earth can stop me!" Her face was veined in red light. Her eyes were lit with hot white light.

"You don't want to kill me," gasped Alex.

And then a Green Martian flew Supergirl into the side of one of the SUVs. They traded punches, but he grabbed her by arms, growling, "Don't do this!"

She head-butted him and then flew out of his grasp, heading up to the top of the CatCo building. The Martian followed and on the way down they took out a dozen windows. Supergirl fell, pushed herself up, turned and saw Alex with the strange gun in her left hand, and a white energy beam hit Supergirl, hard and hot until she collapsed from the pain of it.

But as she lay there, the hard, cold, angry thing that had held her hostage all week suddenly dissipated and let her go.

//

Even after they got her back to the DEO, she lay unconscious for hours. At some point, she felt a hand take hers, but the heartbeat was unfamiliar to her, and even in her uneasy dreams, she was terrified that she had stopped the one heart she most longed to hear.

She was somewhere dark, she thought, a cavern strewn with bats, and the night was cold. She took tiny hesitating steps over the rough ground, whispering, "Alex? Alex, are you there?"

But the rocky walls only echoed her questions, mocking her.

She felt a vague headache, like the time she lost her powers and she wondered if the raging fire in her memory had been fed by the bones of her sister. That fire had burned so hot and there was now no heat left in her world, no warmth, except for the hand that kept hold of hers as she struggled toward consciousness.

She murmured, "Alex?"

And a woman's voice said, "I'll get Alex." The hand squeezed hers and then let go.

Kara opened her eyes. She lay in the DEO's medical bay, remembering dropping Cat and catching her, snarling and laughing at Alex. She thought she had come on to James, but that part was fuzzy, and nothing nearly as terrifying as the thought she might have just killed her sister, the one person she loved better than life itself.

"Kara." Alex's voice.

Tentatively, Kara opened her eyes. Alex stood before her, back in black, including the sling for her right arm.

Kara asked, "Did I kill anyone?"

"No. You didn't kill anyone."

Kara looked at the sling and started to tear. "Your arm..."

"Broken bones heal. And this will too."

Kara sobbed and covered her eyes with her hand. "It was so horrible, Alex. It was so bad. It was... Every bad thought I've ever had, it just came to the surface. I couldn't stop it. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean what I said to you. I am so sorry for what I said."

"Kara, you're my sister. And I love you. No matter what." She brushed one of Kara's tears away. "But there's some truth to what you said. We're going to have to work on that."

"Oh, my God. Cat! and James... How am I ever..."

"The next few weeks and months are not going to be easy, Kara. You've got a lot of work ahead of you. But you can count on me to help, whatever happens. You know that, right?"

"I know. Oh, Alex. I love you so, so much."

"I love you too. You need a little more rest and sunlamps, and I have to handle some DEO things. But I'll sent Vasquez in again to sit with you."

She left and Agent Vasquez came in and sat down next to the bed. "When you're back on your feet again," said the agent quietly, "we can go grab some lunch. Golden Joy is operating out of a food truck until the repairs on their place can be done."

"Vasquez, did you sit with me, before?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did you... hold my hand while I slept."

"Um, yes?"

"Why would you do that?"

Vasquez looked surprised, then thoughtful. "In Iraq, we were blindsided by some aliens, in part because I wasn't paying attention to the right things. I woke up with more than twenty surgical staples in my leg, four dead friends, and a mountain of guilt, and I woke up alone. I didn't want that to happen to you."

"Thank you," whispered Kara, tears still trickling down. "Can you hold it again?"

"Of course, ma'am... Kara."


	19. Ashes

Even after the hottest of fires, there is always something left, some sign that fire was here, destroying, consuming, yes, but not destroying and consuming absolutely everything.

//

Winn watched. Winn watched Kara step out of the regular elevator, wearing a bright pink sweater and a look like someone had kicked all the puppies. Winn watched her navigate Cat, explain about the virus that had kept her from work the last few days. He watched Kara get her courage up and then go talk to James, whose body language was cold and reserved. Winn watched Kara leave James's office and return to her desk, to her work. She looked miserable.

Winn got up and went to James's office. "Sorry. You got a minute?"

James sighed. "Do not take her side."

"I wasn't going to. I know what she did, how bad it was. And now she knows too. But I did think, well, I wanted to point something out."

James pinched the bridge of his nose. "What?"

"Kara threw Cat forty stories--almost to her death. Kara nearly incinerated Alex with her eyes."

"I get it, Winn. I was lucky. All she did was insult Lucy and come on to me and mess with my head. I could be almost dead too, but I'm not. Lucky me. Doesn't make me feel any better."

Winn frowned. "That's not where I was going with this. I just meant, she never said a word to me the entire time. Once she was full-on evil, she only took it out on her sister, her mentor, and her--well, whatever you two are."

"So?"

"So, just, maybe it's true what they say: you only hurt the ones you love."

And he turned on his heel and left.


	20. Embers

Sometimes, what you need is less heat and more light.

//

Cat Grant's newspaper reported on the government's very public takedown of Supergirl and the discovery that a high-ranking FBI agent was an alien, so she was not too surprised to find a very subdued Supergirl sitting on her CatCo balcony. Cat poured herself two fingers of scotch, gritted her teeth, and joined her.

Supergirl spoke slowly. "I love this city. All the light, all the windows. I love that, behind every window, there's a story. And to me, every person in this city is a light. Every time I've been able to help one of them, a little bit of their light has become a part of me. I know what happened wasn't exactly my fault. My brain was altered. But, but it brought something inside of me out. Something dark and mean and horrible. What I did to you, Ms. Grant--"

"Please, I've base-jumped Mount Kilimanjaro. Do you really think you scared me?" She considered that, then decided to be honest. "Well, okay, yes, you did."

"I know. I've scared the whole city. And now I'm afraid that I'm never going to win them back."

"Well, if you came here for me to tell you that it's going to be okay, I can't do that. It's not that easy. But it's not going to be impossible. Personally I don't believe in failure, not if you get back up and face the music. It takes time. But if anybody can win this city back, it's you."

"Can I just sit here for a little while?"

"Of course."

And Cat stood with her, leaning against the balcony wall and sipping her drink, looking out over the city, with its tall buildings and lights shining from the windows, reflected in the eyes that saw them. She, too, loved National City, and if she was going to be honest with herself--

And Cat Grant had paid her therapist too much over the years to not have a modicum of self-honesty most of the time, and quite frankly, almost dying was a good reason to expand the modicum to something larger... So maybe it was time to face something she didn't like to face, that sometimes power and ownership were not in fact all that they were cracked up to be--

So yes, Cat Grant loved National City and she also loved Supergirl. The young woman needed a friend; her friends were going to be thin on the ground in the days going forward. 

Cat very rarely forgave people and she never forgot, but she remembered reading a children's book to Carter some years back, a book about a mouse knight or some such nonsense. But the mouse had learned that you don't forgive someone because they deserve to be forgiven so much as because they need to be forgiven and you need to let go the hurt and blame.

But Cat also wondered if just this time, maybe some of the blame did need to go on Cat and maybe a little part of Supergirl did deserve to be forgiven.

After a while, Supergirl stood up with a sigh. She turned. "Thank you, Ms. Grant."

Cat huffed out a sigh. "Come here, Supergirl." She enfolded the other woman in a hug. "Don't be a stranger." She let her go, composed herself. "I mean, don't be a dark-hearted, murderous marauder, either. But still. If you need a friend... You know where to find me."

The superhero wiped tears away, ducked her head in thanks and leapt into the sky.

Cat Grant finished her drink, called her driver, went home and hugged her son.


	21. Epilogue

Lena Luthor always texted Jess when she landed after a business trip out of town. Usually it was simply to say that she had returned safely. Occasionally, she asked Jess to set up a meeting with someone or cancel one, or as in this case pick something up for her. The list in this case was unusual and a little concerning, but Jess knew not to ask questions, and also picked up a few extra things she thought Lena might need.

The fact that she had also asked for her tablet and some hard copy file folders was also a little surprising. Lena only ever worked from home when she was dying: the flu one time, walking pneumonia the other time. Two times that Jess could recall.

When Jess got to the condo with a backpack full of supplies, she was a little surprised when Lena answered the door so slowly, and she braced herself.

Lena opened the door and looked tired but not hurt in any other way that Jess could see until she turned and hissed and froze. Lena was wearing an old white band t-shirt and the back was all bloody.

“Oh my God, Ms. Luthor! Lena! What happened? Were you attacked? Should I call the police?”

“No, no police, Jess. What happened was… consensual. It got a little out of hand and I stopped it, but the damage was done and then sitting on a plane for two hours didn’t help.”

Lena sat carefully on the couch and Jess saw the swollen wrist. Lena looked away, seemingly ashamed. But Jess was not just her secretary, right-hand woman and staunchest defender. She was also her friend. “Have you iced that?”

“On the plane for a while.”

Jess unpacked the bag, taking the new Ace bandage out of its package. “Hand.”

Lena put her injured hand out and Jess expertly wrapped it. “Too tight?”

“No, it’s perfect.”

Jess stood and went to the kitchen, came back with a dishcloth covering an icepack and an empty glass. She poured Lena two fingers of the scotch she’d brought. “Drink.”

Lena sipped while Jess unpacked gauze, tape and antiseptic.

“Jess, I know this is above and beyond…”

Jess bit her lip, slipping Lena’s shirt above her shoulders. “Lie on your stomach. It’ll make it easier.” She was as gentle as she could be. “We’ll have to keep eye on it so you don’t get infected.”

“Jess…”

Jess sighed. “Lena, I truly believe you are a good person, a brilliant engineer, that you will achieve great things. But you have to survive the move to National City if you’re going to achieve those things. And this is just… reckless.”

“I know. I’m pretty sure this has put me off sex with strangers permanently.”

“Good.”

“It’s a lonely way to live, Jess, with no one at all.”

“Oh, I know. A lot more of us live that way than you think, and not just at L-Corp. There’s precious little love in the world, and for a lot of us, anonymous sex isn’t even an option. But achieving greatness isn’t an option for most people either.”

Lena sat up, pulling her t-shirt back on. She turned to look at her secretary. “I’m sorry, Jess.”

“Lena, when I hitched onto your star, I knew what I was getting into. We make our choices and then we have to live with the consequences.”

Lena nodded, still ashamed. Jess took pity on her. “Hey, who knows, Lena. Maybe once we move to National City, you’ll meet somebody you can have something nice with.”

Lena nodded again, skeptically. “Well, anyway,” she said. “Here’s hoping.”

FINIS


End file.
